François de Chateaubriand
Mémoires d’outre-tombe
Book XXVII
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2005 All Rights Reserved.
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Book XXVII: Chapter 1: The year 1822 – First despatches from London
Book XXVII: Chapter 3: English Society
Book XXVII: Chapter 4: More despatches
Book XXVII: Chapter 6: Portraits of the Ministers
Book XXVII: Chapter 7: More of my despatches
Book XXVII: Chapter 9: The death of Lord Londonderry
Book XXVII: Chapter 11: The end of the old England – Charlotte Reflections – I leave London
Revised: December 1846.
It was in
Thus the things which I
would have set down here, under the appropriate dates covering my diplomatic
mission, have already been anticipated. The prologue to Book VI told you of my
emotion, the feelings recalled by the sight of those places dear to my memory;
but perhaps you have not read that book? You have done well. It is enough now that
I have told you of the place where the gaps which must exist in this present
recital of my
In
The parliamentary
vacation was in progress when I reached my residence on Portland Place. The Under-Secretary of
State, Monsieur Planta, invited me, on
behalf of the Marquis of Londonderry,
to dinner at
My despatch of the 12th of April, no.4, details my first meeting with Lord Londonderry; it touched on matters which were to concern me.
‘
Monsieur le Vicomte,
I went, the day before
yesterday, Wednesday the 10th, to
Lord Londonderry first asked for news of the King’s health, with an insistence which visibly declared a political interest; reassured by me on that point, he passed to the government: “It is strengthened,” he said to me. I replied; “It was never weakened, and as it adheres to party, it will remain in control as long as that party dominates the two Chambers.” That led us to discuss the elections: he seemed struck by what I said regarding the advantage of a summer session in order to restore order to the financial year; he had not fully understood till then the state of the matter.
The war between
I do not know if high
politics has made Lord Londonderry forget about the slave trade; he said not a
word to me about it. Changing the subject, he spoke to me of a message from the
President of the
It was necessary, Monsieur
le Vicomte, to relate so important a conversation to you verbatim. However, we
should not mislead ourselves: the English will sooner or later recognise the
independence of the Spanish Colonies; public opinion and foreign trade will
require it. They have already gone to considerable expense, in the last three
years, establishing secret relations with the insurgent provinces north and
south of the
In summary, Monsieur le Vicomte, I found the Marquis of Londonderry a man of intellect, of doubtful frankness perhaps; a man still imbued with the old system of government; a man accustomed to diplomatic subservience and surprised, without being offended, by a nobler mode of speech from France; a man finally who cannot avoid a kind of astonishment in speaking to one of those Royalists who, for the last seven years, have been represented to him as fools or madmen.
I have the honour, etc.’
With these general
matters were mixed, as in all embassies, specific transactions. I had to attend
to a request from the Duke of Fitzjames,
regarding the proceedings of the boat Eliza-Ann,
the depredations of Jersey fishermen among
the Granville oyster-beds, etc. etc. I
regretted being obliged to dedicate a small compartment of my brain to
claimants’ dossiers. Though one rummages one’s memory, it is hard to recall
Messieurs Usquin, Coppinger, Deliège
and Piffre. But, in a few years time, will
we be any more well-known than these gentlemen? A certain Monsieur Bonnet having died in
As for the East, it was
a matter of recalling the various ambassadors from
Parliament began its session once more on the 17th of April; the King returned on the 18th, and I was presented to him on the 19th. I gave an account of this presentation in my despatch of the 19th; it ended thus:
‘His Majesty, with his rich and varied conversation, did not leave me room to say anything of those matters with which our King has specially entrusted me; but the imminent and favourable opportunity of a fresh audience presents itself.’
The thing which the King had particularly charged me to raise with George IV concerned Monsieur le Duc Decazes. I fulfilled the obligation a little later: I told George IV that Louis XVIII was troubled by the coolness with which the Ambassador of His Very Christian Majesty had been received. George IV replied:
‘Listen,
Monsieur de Chateaubriand, and I will make you a confession: Monsieur Decaze’s appointment
did not please me; I was presented with it somewhat cavalierly. My friendship
for the King of France alone made me tolerate a favourite who had no other
merit than that of his attachment to his master. Louis XVIII has often relied
on my goodwill, with good reason; but I could not permit the indulgence of
treating Monsieur Decazes with a distinction which would have harmed
Emboldened
by these words, I made George IV aware of all that came to mind in favour of
Monsieur Decazes. He replied, partly in French, partly in English: ‘À merveille! You are a true gentleman.’
On my return to
The
idea of returning our armies to power and splendour possessed me continually. I
wrote to Monsieur de Montmorency,
on the 13th of April: ‘An idea has come to me, Monsieur the Vicomte, which I
submit to your judgement: would you find me at fault if in conversation with
Prince Esterhazy, I were to tell
him that if Austria should need to withdraw a section of its troops from Piedmont, we might replace them? Rumours
which spread of an intended mobilisation of our troops in the Dauphiné offered
me a favourable pretext. I had proposed to the former minister to send a
garrison to
Proofs abound of the nobility of our diplomacy during the Restoration. What did it matter to anyone? Did I not read only this morning, in a left-wing newspaper, that the Alliance had forced us to be its policemen and to make war in Spain, when the records of the Congress of Verona exist, when the diplomatic documents show in an irrefutable manner that all Europe, with the exception of Russia, did not want war; that not only did she not want it, but that England openly rejected it, and Austria thwarted us in secret by less noble measures? That will not prevent some new lie tomorrow; no one will give themselves the trouble of investigating the matter, of reading that which they speak of knowingly without having read! Every lie repeated becomes a truth: one cannot have too much contempt for human opinion.
Lord John Russell put forward, on the 25th of April, in the Commons, a motion regarding the state of national representation in parliament: Mr Canning opposed it. The latter in turn proposed a bill to repeal part of the act which deprived Catholic Peers of the right to vote and sit in the Lords. I was present at the sessions in the Lords, on the Woolsack, where the Lord Chancellor made me sit. Mr Canning was present in 1822 at the session of the Chamber of Peers which finally rejected his bill; he was offended by a phrase of the aged Lord Chancellor; the latter, speaking of the author of the bill, exclaimed disdainfully: ‘We are assured that he is leaving for India: ah! Let him go, this fine gentleman, let him go! Farewell!’ Mr Canning said to me on emerging: ‘I will see him again.’
Lord Holland spoke very well, without however recalling Mr Fox. He twisted himself about, so that he often presented his back to the assembly and addressed his sentences to the wall. They shouted: ‘Hear! Hear!’ No one was shocked by his eccentricity.
In
The arrival of the King, the return of Parliament, the opening of the festive season, mingled duty, business and pleasure; one might meet the Ministers at Court, at a ball, or in Parliament. To celebrate the official anniversary of His Majesty’s birth, I dined with Lord Londonderry, I dined on the Lord Mayor’s barge, which sailed as far as Richmond: I prefer the miniature Bucentaur in the Venice Arsenal, bearing only a memory of the Doges and a Virgilian name. Formerly as an émigré, lean and half-naked, I amused myself, though no Scipio, with throwing stones into the water, along that shoreline grazed by the Lord Mayor’s broad and well-lined barge.
I also dined in the
There was no longer any
question of those émigré hops where
we danced to the sound of a violin played by a Councillor of the Breton
Parliament; it was Almack’s, with Colinet as conductor, that provided my
pleasures; a public ball-room under the patronage of the great ladies of the
West End. There the old and young dandies met. Among the old the conqueror of
Today that is all past: the dandy must possess a conquering, careless, insolent air; he must though care for his appearance, cultivate a moustache, or a beard trimmed as round as a ruff in the age of Elizabeth I, or like a radiant sun disc; he reveals his proud independence of character by keeping his hat on his head, lounging on a sofa, stretching his booted legs out under the noses of the admiring ladies seated on chairs around him; he rides with a crop which he holds upright like a candlestick, indifferent to the horse which chances to be between his legs. His health needs to be perfect, and his soul filled with half a dozen joys or so. Some radical dandies, the most advanced, sport a pipe.
But doubtless, all this has changed at the very moment I set out to describe it. They say the dandy of today must not be aware of whether he exists or no, whether society is there, whether it contains ladies, and whether he should greet his fellow man. Is it not strange to find the original of the dandy in the reign of Henri III: ‘Those pretty darlings,’ says the author of The Isle of Hermaphrodites, ‘wear their hair long, curled and re-curled, rising above their little velvet bonnets, like women, and the ruffs of their linen shirts of starched finery, and half a foot long, such that seeing their heads above their ruffs, they look like St John the Baptist, with his head on a platter.’
They go to present themselves at Henry III’s apartments, ‘swinging their body, head and limbs, so one would think they would fall headlong at the slightest obstacle…They find this manner of walking finer than any other.’
The English are all mad by nature or by fashion.
Lord Clanwilliam soon passed by: I met him again at Verona; he became an Ambassador in Berlin after me. We followed the same path for an instant, though we did not walk at the same pace.
Nothing succeeded, in
The ladies most in
fashion pleased me least; one of them however, Lady Gwydir, was delightful; she was like a
Frenchwoman in her style and manners. Lady Jersey
still preserved her beauty. I met the Opposition at her house. Lady Conyngham belonged to that Opposition,
and the King himself kept a secret
fondness for his former friends. Among the noted patronesses of Almack’s was the Ambassadress of
She, the Countess von
Lieven, had various quite ridiculous affairs involving Madame d’Osmond and George IV. As she was daring and was
regarded as being in favour, she had become extremely fashionable. She was
thought to show spirit, because her husband was supposed to lack it; which was
untrue: Monsieur de Lieven was wholly
superior to Madame. Madame de Lieven, of sharp and unpleasant features, is a
common woman, wearisome, and arid, who has only one form of conversation,
vulgar politics; moreover, she knows nothing, and hides her poverty of ideas
beneath an abundance of words. When she finds herself among men of worth, her
sterility silences her; she decks out her nullity with an air of superior
ennui, as if she has the right to be bored; reduced by the ravages of time, and
unable to prevent herself meddling in everything, the Dowager of Congresses
arrived from Verona to bestow on Paris,
with the permission of the magistrates of St Petersburg, an account of the
diplomatic puerilities of yesteryear. She chattered about the contents of
private correspondence, and appeared prominently in regard to failed marriages.
The novices among us were launched into the salons to learn about polite society
and the art of keeping secrets; they confided their own, which elaborated on by
Madame von Lieven, were transmuted to dull gossip. The Ministers, and those who
aspired to become such, are all proud of being the protégés of a lady who had
the honour to know Monsieur Metternich
in the days when the great man, in order to relieve himself of the weight of
business, amused himself by unpicking
threads. Ridicule followed Madame von Lieven in
The days in London were
divided thus: at ten in the morning, people went to an orgy, consisting of
breakfast in the country; they returned to dine in London; they changed their
clothes to parade through Bond Street or Hyde Park; they changed again to dine
at seven-thirty; they changed again for the Opera; at midnight, they changed
again for a party or a reception! What an enchanting life! I would have
preferred the galleys a hundred times over. The acme of good taste was, after
being unable to penetrate the ante-rooms of a private ball, to remain on the
staircase blocked by the crowd, and find oneself face to face with the Duke of Somerset; a blessing which I once
attained. The new breed of English people is infinitely more frivolous than us;
their heads are turned by a show: if
the
Everyone famous soon
visits the banks of the
After
my official presentation to George IV, I
saw him several times. The recognition of the Spanish colonies by
The
despatch ends thus: ‘If
Reading
this despatch, Monsieur le Vicomte, you will doubtless experience, as I do, a
feeling of satisfaction. A significant political step has already been achieved
in having obliged
This
letter was the foundation for all my ideas and negotiations regarding colonial
affairs with which I occupied myself during the War in
On
the 17th of May I was at
The
Vicomte de Montmorency refused
to enter into negotiations over the Spanish colonies with the Court of St
James. I learnt, on the 19th of May, of the sudden death of Monsieur le Duc de Richelieu. That honest man had
patiently endured his first dismissal from government; but events causing him
to lose too much time he missed any further opportunity, since he lacked a
second life to replace that which he had lost. The great name of
Revolution
continued in the
No.
26.
‘
There was much talk of distress among the Irish peasantry, and peopled danced for consolation. A grand ball held at the Opera, engaged all feeling souls. The King, encountering me in the corridor, asked me what I was doing there, and taking me by the arm, led me to his box.
The
stalls, in the days when I was an exile, were rough and rowdy; sailors drank
beer there, ate oranges, and shouted at the boxes. I once found myself next to
a sailor who had arrived in a state of intoxication; he demanded to know where
he was; I told him: ‘
Invited recently to an evening at Lord Lansdowne’s, His Lordship presented me to a severe-looking lady of sixty-six: she was dressed in crepe, wore a black veil like a tiara on her white hair, and resembled some queen who had abdicated. She greeted me in solemn tones, with three mispronounced quotations from Le Génie du Christianisme; then she told me with no less solemnity: ‘I am Mrs Siddons.’ If she had said: ‘I am Lady Macbeth’, I would have believed her. I had seen her previously on the stage at the height of her powers. It was necessary only to have lived long enough to find the debris of one century hurled onto the shore of another by Time’s waves.
The visitors from France I received in London were Monsieur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Guiche, whom I will speak about in talking of Prague; Monsieur le Marquis de Custine, whom I had known when he was a child at Fervaques; and Madame la Vicomtesse de Noailles, as pleasant, spiritual and gracious as if she were still fourteen and wandering through the lovely gardens at Méréville.
People
tired of receptions; the Ambassadors dreamed of going on leave: Prince Esterhazy prepared to depart for
I left on the 6th of June for Royal Lodge, where the King was. He had invited me to dinner, and to stay the night.
I
saw George IV again on the 12th, 13th and 14th, at a levee, at a drawing-room
reception, and at a ball given by his Majesty. On the 24th, I gave a dinner for
the Prince and Princess of
The kindness, with which the Marchioness of Conyngham treated me, might have been a thing of importance once: she told me that His Majesty’s idea of a trip to the continent had not been entirely abandoned. I hid this great secret religiously in my breast. What important despatches might have been written about this word from a favourite, in the age of Mesdames de Verneuil, de Maintenon, Des Ursins and de Pompadour! Besides, it would have been inappropriate for me to stir myself to obtain information from the Court of St James: you speak in vain, no one hears.
Lord Londonderry was particularly impenetrable: he hindered one by his sincerity as a Minister and at the same time his reserve as a man. He explained his political views frankly in a most frigid manner and kept a profound silence where events were concerned. He seemed as indifferent about what he said as about what he did not; one did not know what to think of what he revealed or of what he hid. He would not have budged if you had exploded a firecracker in his ear, as Saint-Simon has it.
Lord
Londonderry possessed a kind of Irish eloquence which often caused hilarity in
the Lords, and gaiety amongst the public: his blunders were celebrated, but he sometimes attained marks of
eloquence which swayed a crowd, for example his speeches regarding the battle
of
The
Earl of Harrowby was Lord President of
the Council; he spoke with propriety, lucidity and knowledge of the facts. It
would have been considered unseemly in
I have mentioned Mr Peel and Lord Westmoreland in The Congress of Verona.
I
do not know if Lord Bathurst is
descended from and is the grandson of the Lord Bathurst of whom Sterne wrote: ‘This nobleman, I say, is a
prodigy! For at eighty five he has all the wit and promptness of a man of
thirty, a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, beyond
what-ever I knew.’ Lord Bathurst, the Minister of whom I am speaking, was
educated and polite; he kept up the traditions of old French manners and good
company. He had three or four daughters who ran, or rather flew like sea terns,
beside the waves, slender, white, and weightless. What has become of them? Have
they fallen into the
Lord Liverpool was not, like Lord Londonderry, the leading Minister; but he was the Minister who was most influential and most respected. He enjoyed reputation as a religious man and one of good will, a thing so potent for those who possess it; the man was approached with the trust one bestows on one’s father; no action appeared good if it was not approved by this saintly person, invested with an authority greatly superior to that of mere talent. Lord Liverpool was the son of Charles Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, Baron Hawkesbury, favourite of Lord Bute. Almost all the English Statesmen first pursued a literary career, in pieces of verse of varying quality, and in articles, generally excellent, inserted in the reviews. There is a portrait of this 1st Earl of Liverpool when he was private secretary to Lord Bute; his family was in great distress: vanity, puerile at all times, is doubtless still more so today; but let us not forget that our most fiery revolutionaries acquired their hatred of society from natural disadvantage or social inferiority.
It
is possible that Lord Liverpool, inclined to reform, and to whom Mr Canning owed his last Ministry, was
influenced, despite the strictness of his religious principles, by unpleasant
memories. At the time when I knew Lord Liverpool, he was an inspired Puritan
almost. He lived alone, though habit, with an elderly sister, some miles from
Mr
Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, celebrated
as an author and orator, belonged to the
Two years ago, Mr Croker came to visit me at the Marie-Thérèse Infirmary. He remarked on the similarity of our opinions and fates. Events separated us from society; politics creates it solitaries as religion creates its anchorites. When man inhabits the desert, he finds there some distant image of the infinite being who, living alone in the immensity, watches worlds complete their revolutions.
During
the course of June and July, affairs in
In my despatch of 28th June, no. 35, the English position is faithfully reflected:
No.
35 ‘
Monsieur le Vicomte,
It
is easier to tell you what Lord Londonderry thinks, regarding
I have the honour, etc.’
Returning,
in my despatch of the 16th July, no. 40, to the news from
No.
40. ‘
Monsieur le Vicomte,
The English
newspapers, following the French newspapers, this morning carried the news from
I have the honour to be, etc, etc, etc.’
Since
the Congresses of Vienna and Aix-la-Chapelle, the Princes of Europe
were obsessed with congresses: it was there that one amused oneself and divided
things up between the nations. Scarcely had the Congress, begun at Troppau and continued at Laibach, ended, than they thought of
convoking another in
In
‘Since I am writing confidentially, dear Vicomte, I will tell you what I would not say in an official despatch, but what personal observation, and the advice too of those who well know the terrain in which you are placed, have prompted. Have you considered firstly that, vis-à-vis the English Minister, one must be cautious of certain effects of jealousy and mood that are always likely to be engendered regarding any direct marks of favour from the King, or of credit in society? Tell me, have you not chanced to notice traces of such?’
Through whom had complaints concerning my credit with the King and in society (that is to say, I assume, with the Marchioness Conyngham) been transmitted to the Vicomte de Montmorency? I do not know.
Anticipating,
by this private despatch, that my cause was lost with the Foreign Minister, I
addressed myself to Monsieur de Villèle,
then my friend, and who was not greatly inclined towards his colleague. In his
letter of
‘
‘I must thank you,’ he says, ‘for all you have achieved on our behalf in London; the decisions of that Court regarding the Spanish colonies should not influence our own; our position is quite different; we must avoid above all being prevented, by a war with Spain, from acting as we ought to elsewhere, should affairs in the Orient lead to new political alignments in Europe.
We will not allow the French government to be dishonoured by failing to participate in events which may arise from the current world situation: others may intervene to greater advantage, none with greater courage and loyalty.
Others are greatly mistaken, I believe, concerning both our country’s true means, and the power that the King’s government can still exercise through prescribed forms; these command more resources than they appear to think, and I trust that we will know how to reveal them on occasion.
You will support us, my dear friend, during these major events if they occur. We know it, and count on it; the honour will be yours, and not merely according to your share in the matters currently in question, but according to services rendered; let us vie with all zeal as to who will distinguish themselves most.
I do not know in truth if all this will turn into a Congress; but, in any case, I will not forget what you have said to me.
JH. DE VILLÈLE.’
At this first sign of good intent, I put pressure on the Minister of Finance through Madame la Duchesse de Duras; she had already leant me the support of her friendship regarding the Court’s neglect in 1814. She soon received this note from Monsieur de Villèle:
‘All we could say has been said; all that it is in my heart and my judgement to do for the public good, and for my friend, has been done and will be done: be certain of it. I have no need of being preached at, nor converted, I repeat; I act from conviction and sentiment.
Accept, Madame, the homage of my affectionate respect.’
My
final despatch, dated the 9th of August, announced to Monsieur de Montmorency
that Lord Londonderry was leaving for
‘
‘Despatch transmitted to
The Marquis of Londonderry died suddenly at nine this morning, in his country house at North-Cray.’
No.
49. ‘
Monsieur le Vicomte,
If the weather caused no delay to my telegraphed despatch, and if no accident occurred to my special courier, who left here at four, I anticipate that you will have received the first news on the Continent of Lord Londonderry’s sudden death.
His
death is tragic in the extreme. The noble Marquis was in
This deplorable incident has been concealed as much as possible, but it has reached the public in garbled form, and given birth to all kinds of rumours.
Why
should Lord Londonderry cut short his life? He had neither passions nor
misfortunes; he was more secure in his position than ever. He was preparing to
leave the following Thursday. He would have turned what is a business journey
into a pleasant excursion. He was due to return on the 15th of October for a
shooting trip arranged in advance, to which he had invited me.
Here are a few details which did not appear in my despatches.
On returning to London, George IV told me that Lord Londonderry had brought him the plan of instruction which he had drawn up for himself and which he would follow at the Congress. George IV took the manuscript, to consider its terms more closely, and began to read in a loud voice. He noticed that Lord Londonderry was not listening, and that his gaze was directed towards the ceiling of the room: “What is the matter, Milord? the King asked. – Sire,” replied the Marquis, “here is that insupportable John (a jockey) at the door; he won’t go away, though I am always ordering him to do so.” The King, astonished, folded the document and said: “You are ill, Milord: go home; have yourself bled.” Lord Londonderry left and went off to buy the knife with which he cut his throat.
On the 13th of August, I continued my despatch to Monsieur de Montmorency.
‘They
have sent couriers everywhere, to the spas, to the coastal resorts, to the
country houses, to seek the absent Ministers. At the moment when the incident
occurred none of them were in
I have the honour, etc.’
‘
‘Monsieur le Vicomte,
Subsequent information has confirmed what I had the honour to tell you regarding the death of the Marquis of Londonderry, in my regular despatch, no. 49, of the day before yesterday. Only, the fatal instrument with which the unfortunate Minister cut his jugular vein was a pen-knife and not a razor as I advised you previously. The Coroner’s report, which you will see in the newspapers, will tell you all. An inquest into the death of Great-Britain’s leading Minister, as over the body of a murderer, adds something even more dreadful to that event.
You doubtless now know Monsieur le Vicomte that Lord Londonderry had shown signs of mental alienation a few days before his suicide, and that the King himself perceived them. A small circumstance to which I paid no attention, but which I have recalled since the tragedy, is worth relating. I went to see the Marquis of Londonderry, a fortnight or so ago. Contrary to his custom, and to that of the country, he received me familiarly in his dressing-room. He was about to shave himself, and while laughing with a sardonic laugh he made me a eulogy on English razors. I complimented him on the impending closure of the Parliamentary session. “Yes,” he said, “It will have to end or I will.”
I have the honour, etc.’
All that the English Radicals and the French Liberals have said of the death of Lord Londonderry, namely: that he killed himself because of political depression, feeling that the principles opposed to his own would triumph, is a pure fable invented by the imagination of some, the party bias and foolishness of others. Lord Londonderry was not the man to repent of having sinned against humanity, for which he scarcely cared, nor the intellectuals of the period, for whom he had a profound contempt: his insanity was introduced into the Castlereagh family through the female line.
It
was decided that the Duke of Wellington,
accompanied by Lord Clanwilliam, would
take Lord Londonderry’s place at the Congress. The official instructions were
reduced to these: forget about
I was present at Lord Londonderry’s funeral, at Westminster, on the 29th of August. The Duke of Wellington seemed moved; Lord Liverpool was obliged to cover his face with his hat to hide his tears. Outside cries of insult could be heard, and of delight when the body entered the Abbey: were Colbert and Louis XIV any more respected? The living can teach the dead nothing; the dead, on the contrary, instruct the living.
A LETTER FROM MONSIEUR DE MONTMORENCY
‘
Though there are no
despatches of any importance to entrust to your faithful Hyacinthe, I desire however to send him on to
you, noble Vicomte, according to your own wish, and the one which he has
expressed to me on behalf of Madame de Chateaubriand, that of seeing
him returned promptly to you. I will take advantage of it to address a few
highly confidential words to you on the profound impression made here, as in
London, by the news of the dreadful death of the Marquis of Londonderry, and
also, at the same time, on that matter in which you seem rightly to take an exaggerated
and exclusive interest. The King’s council has profited from it, and fixed for today,
immediately after the closure of the session which took place this very
morning, a discussion of the principal direction to be decided upon, the
instructions to be given, and likewise the representatives to be selected: the
first question is to decide whether there shall be one or many. You have
expressed, it seems to me, a fraction of the astonishment felt that they could
think of sending ……., by not
preferring you to him, you know very well that he could not do the same job for
us. If after mature consideration, we do not believe it possible to profit from
the goodwill you have shown us with great frankness, in this regard, it would
without doubt be for serious reasons which I would communicate to you equally
frankly: the adjournment is rather favourable to your wishes, in this sense,
that it would be totally inappropriate, for you and for us, for you to leave
London in the next few weeks, before the ministerial decision is made, one which
does not fail to occupy the whole Cabinet. It strikes everyone in the same way,
as friends told me the other day: “If Monsieur de Chateaubriand were to come
straight to
MONTMORENCY.’
This fresh letter from Monsieur de Montmorency, containing ironic phrases, plainly confirmed to me that he did not wish me to attend the Congress.
I gave a dinner on Saint-Louis’ day in honour of Louis XVIII, and paid a visit to Hartwell in memory of that King’s exile; I fulfilled a duty rather than enjoying a pleasure. Unfortunate Royals are now so common that one is scarcely interested in places except those where genius or virtue lived. In the little park at Hartwell I only saw Louis XVI’s daughter.
Finally and suddenly I received this unexpected note from Monsieur de Villèle which gave the lie to my presentiments and put an end to my uncertainty:
‘27th of August 1822.
My dear Chateaubriand, it
has been decided that as soon as the proprieties regarding the King’s return to
London allow, you will be authorised to return to Paris, in order to travel
from there to Vienna or Verona as one of the three plenipotentiaries charged
with representing France at the Congress. The two others will be Messieurs de Caraman and de La Ferronays; which does not prevent Monsieur
le Vicomte de Montmorency leaving for Vienna the day after tomorrow, in order
to assist at the discussions which may take place there before the Congress. He
is to return to
This is for your eyes alone. I am happy that the matter has taken the direction you desire; my heart is all yours.’
After this note, I prepared to leave.
The lightning which dogs
my footsteps follows me everywhere. With Lord Londonderry the old
What need had
It seems to me that I
chart a course through
How many times has
‘Quid dignum memorare tuis, Hispania, terris
Vox human valet?’
‘What human voice, O Spain, is worthy of recalling your shores?’
This was not that Roman Campagne whose irresistible charm ceaselessly called to me; these waves, this sunlight, were not those which bathed and illuminated the promontory on which Plato taught his disciples, that Sunium where I heard the cicada asking Minerva in vain for the hearth of the priests of her temple; but ultimately, she was charming and formidable, that England, surrounded as she was by her ships, covered by her herds, and professing the religion of her great men.
Today, her valleys are
obscured by the fumes from forges and factories, her roads are changed to iron
tracks; and along those roads, instead of Milton and Shakespeare, restless trains
travel. Already the cradles of science,
Beside those monuments, around
which a void is beginning to form, I left the rediscovered days of my
springtime; I separated from my youth for a second time, on the same shore
where I had abandoned it once before: Charlotte had suddenly reappeared
like that light, the joy of the darkness, which, retarded in its monthly
course, will rise at midnight. If you are not too weary, go and seek in Book X of these Memoirs the effect that the sudden sight
of that woman had on me in 1822. When she knew me previously, I had not then met
those other Englishwomen a crowd of whom surrounded me in my days of power and
fame: their homage brought a kind of mildness to my fate. Now, when sixteen
long years have vanished since my
I have not related all that
concerns
It has often occurred to
me to seek clarification of my doubts; but how can I return to
Man is as much deceived
by the success of his wishes as by their disappointment: I had desired,
contrary to my natural instincts, to go to the congress of
One of the two fine
children in whom
I embarked at
End of Book XXVII